1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display systems, and, in particular, to a system for providing stored display signals to a display monitor during television viewing.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional television (TV) programming, including the commercials and advertisements, provides the primary viewing experience to users of a television set. As is well known, this primary viewing experience may be provided to the user via a host of media, such as for example, the cable system, the Digital Satellite System, or any network broadcast medium. Furthermore, the received TV signals may conform to any standard form, for example, National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) form, or Phase Alteration Line (PAL) form.
Recently there has been a rise in the usage of a television set for the purposes of providing a secondary viewing experience. A well known example is where a user employs special purpose hardware coupled to a conventional TV set to play video games using the associated display monitor. When a TV monitor is thus used for a video game (for example, a Sega or Nintendo game), the monitor essentially becomes a dedicated game console. It can be appreciated that providing such secondary viewing experiences to users enhances and augments the functionality of a conventional TV set.
While providing a secondary viewing experience can render a xe2x80x9cuser-passivexe2x80x9d TV set (notwithstanding the user-initiated actions such as channel selection) into a xe2x80x9cuser-interactivexe2x80x9d device, current methodologies for bringing information into a TV set for providing the secondary viewing experience are beset with several problems. For example, it is well known that when a TV monitor is used as a video game console, the secondary viewing experience (that is, the interactive video game) completely overrides the primary viewing experience (that is, the TV programming). Clearly, this condition renders it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to return to the primary viewing experience at a desired point therein. It can be appreciated, accordingly, that it is desirable to have a mechanism to combine and provide both the viewing experiences concurrently on the TV monitor so as to enable a user to know when to get back to the primary viewing experience.
Another shortcoming with the traditional solutions for bringing a secondary viewing experience into a TV viewing environment is that varying the content of the secondary viewing experience typically involves considerable hardware manipulation, such as, for instance, replacing game cartridges. The prior art does not provide for obtaining fresh content for secondary viewing experiences on the fly such that it may be xe2x80x9cinstantaneouslyxe2x80x9d displayed for viewing by the user.
Yet another shortcoming of the traditional secondary-viewing-experience methodologies is that these methodologies to date have not allowed for ready updating and changing of sponsorship in the form of modifiable credit lines, advertising spaces, and the like. Since the content of a secondary viewing experience may be third-party-supported (that is, supported by advertisers), traditional revenue models in regard to advertising in conventional TV programming may not be readily applied.
Accordingly, based upon the foregoing, it should be understood and appreciated that there is a need for a display system with the following advantages: (i) one viewing experience is not completely overridden by another, (ii) xe2x80x9con-the-flyxe2x80x9d provision of the fresh content for a secondary viewing experience, and (iii) provision for modifiable sponsorship information.
Although display systems that provide capability to alternate between primary and secondary experiences have been extant for sometime, no such system is known to have all of these and other advantages provided by the present invention which is described and claimed hereinbelow.
The present invention overcomes the above-identified problems as well as other shortcomings and deficiencies of existing technologies by providing a display system (or, interchangeably, a xe2x80x9cPCTVxe2x80x9d system) having a display monitor, receiver means for receiving television signals, which television signals are provided to the display monitor for displaying, and a sub-system with a storage unit and a processor, the sub-system providing display information stored in the storage unit to the display monitor for simultaneous display thereof. A presently preferred exemplary embodiment of the present invention may integrate the display monitor, the receiver means and the sub-system into a single unit, and may also include access control means and a data communication port, wherein the access control means and the data communication port are operably coupled to the processor of the sub-system. In one aspect, the receiver means comprises an analog television receiving unit. In an alternative aspect, the receiver means comprises a digital television receiving unit. The display information stored in the storage unit may preferably comprise application information and sponsor information, the sponsor information being delivered via either a vertical blanking interval received by the receiver means or via a digital signal bandwidth received by the receiver means.
In a still further aspect, the present invention relates to a method for providing display information to a display system having a display monitor, a receiver for receiving television signals, and a sub-system with a storage unit in which the display information is stored, the method comprising the steps of: creating a first window on the display monitor; providing the television signals received by the receiver to the display monitor for displaying in the first window; and, creating a second window on the display monitor, so that the display information is routed to be displayed in the second window. In a presently preferred exemplary embodiment, the method further comprises the step of creating a third window on the display monitor, so that at least a portion of the display information is routed to be displayed in the third window.